Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplex (OFDM) modulation techniques are often used to transmit signals between nodes in a network, such as a cable network or a wireless network. To achieve improved bit error rate performance in the OFDM demodulators at the receiving nodes, tuner phase noise is usually compensated for using a technique known as common phase error correction (CPE). CPE, however, introduces latency, which may exceed the specifications required by communications standards such as Multimedia over Coax (MoCA), Digital Video Broadcasting (DVB-C2), as well as standards associated with wireless personal area networks (WPAN), wireless local area networks (WLAN), Wireless Metropolitan Area Networks (WMAN), Wireless Wide Area Networks (WWAN) and the like.
Additionally, to achieve higher data rates, these standards use higher order OFDM sub-carrier quadrature amplitude modulation (QAM) such as, for example, QAM 1024 and QAM4096. These implementations are more susceptible to phase noise due to the greater number of constellation points, 1024 and 4096 respectively, that are more closely located in phase space and thus more difficult to discriminate.
An alternative to the use of CPE is to design tuners with reduced phase noise profiles, but this is difficult and costly, particularly when the tuners need to be integrated with digital or mixed-signal components.
Although the following Detailed Description will proceed with reference being made to illustrative embodiments, many alternatives, modifications, and variations thereof will be apparent to those skilled in the art.